Let's just get into it.
Migraines
No real change here. I've had several long migraines in a row since I last wrote. 8 days, 5 days, and I'm currently on day 8 of another. Per normal for the course, they've varied from moderate to severe. This current one is being helped along with a strain that I'll talk about in the next section.
The one 'out of the ordinary' thing I encountered migraine wise was a five day break. Since last summer most of my breaks in between migraines are one or two days. Having five days off felt like a vacation. But a scary vacation as every day that went by without a migraine, I was fearing their return even more.
Other Health
Have you ever slept on your neck 'wrong' and woke up with a kink in your neck? That was me this past Tuesday morning. I didn't think much of it, just kind of rub that area, do some shoulder rolls, flex my neck. I had a migraine that day (duh) so I kept bumping against the strain, probably making it worse. It just grew more severe through the day.
It got bad enough that I had trouble sleeping that night. As in, I woke up in pain and couldn't find a comfortable position. I changed pillows to an old stand by that I'd recently replaced, but no go. I ended up getting out of bed with only a few hours of sleep.
That day, Wednesday, was my birthday. It sucked because my neck was honestly hurting very badly. I'd committed myself to picking up my nephew from college just before dinner. I both had the strain and the migraine to deal with. If it weren't for the migraine, I probably would have thought more clearly and asked my brother to get my nephew as the college is about a 15 minute drive away through country roads (seriously, the college is out in the boonies). I say that because I could barely turn my head to the left or the right. How the hell was I going to look for traffic without being able to turn my head?
Thankfully I got through it with no accidents, but it was harrowing and painful. Between over 30 years of driving muscle memory to turn my head and look and the migraine making it so damned easy to forget to NOT look, I pulled and pulled and pulled on my neck. Dinner sucked, that evening sucked, and I went to bed in agony.
Thursday was even worse. Not only could I barely look to the left or right, I couldn't quite look up or down either. I was tripping over Mom's oxygen tubing all day.
My nursing self stepped in. What would I tell a patient if they came to me with this problem. Without any direct injury, I'd say its well past the 'avoid swelling' time (that'd be where Ice would help). So we're in heat territory. We have a heating pad here, but I swear I think it's older than me. So I looked on Amazon and initially searched out the 'best' heating pad designed for necks. When I looked at the shipping times though, it became clear which one it would be. A Sunbeam heating pad that wraps around my neck like mini cape, has four heating settings and most importantly, could be delivered the same day. All the others were deliverable the next day. I figured an extra day of heating pad use outweighed one that might be a little better. It arrived that evening.
Thursday night was probably the worst point. I could now barely use my arms. Lifting the heating pad over my head was agony, but once the heat started it felt good. I'd love to leave the heat on, but I know it's best when used for twenty minutes or so, then off for twenty minutes or so. I honestly can't remember why, but I do remember you don't just want constant heat for healing.
I slept like shit Thursday night. Friday I really dug in. I started taking large doses of ibuprofen (800mg every four hours) and using the heating pad for 20 minutes then 40 minutes off. I did that all day and felt improved that evening. I actually was able to sleep for more than a couple hours that night.
Yesterday, Saturday, was even better. At one point I got distracted and forgot to take my ibuprofen on time as well as forgetting to use the heating pad for a couple hours, and the pain returned. It wasn't as bad as Thursday, but it was still worse than when I used the pad. I got back on schedule and was comfortable again after dinner. About the only problem that came up was I grew incredibly tired that evening and ended up going to bed at 9 PM. That's a full three hours before my normal bed time.
This morning I woke up just before 3 AM. I didn't want to get out of bed after only six hours, but I know that my 'normal' is barely seven hours and my neck was already achy.... so I've been awake for almost three hours now and it's still an hour before my normal wake up time. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a nap day today.
So long as I continue to improve at this rate, I figure this will be 'done' by Wednesday. I put that in air quotes because a true strain can be muscle OR tendon. If this were muscle, it would have felt better by now. So, if it's tendon then it will take longer to fully heal. Like weeks longer. But hopefully by mid week I won't need the heat and daily ibuprofen.
I've also been dealing with a cold. I don't know when it fully started but I remember calling my brother on the 8th (the day of the national championship) and giving him warning as the cold was involving a cough. It slowly got better, but it's left a congestion in my lungs that I can't seem to shake. I don't have a specific cough with the cold, but the congestion builds up and is only taken care of by bringing it up... by coughing. Especially in the morning I have a deep chest cough that brings up a horrible tasting mucous (that's likely due to smoking).
Now, as a diabetic and a smoker, having a cold last a long time isn't abnormal. But we're talking about three weeks now. The nurse part of me is starting to worry.
Finances
Nothing really new here. I got an appointment scheduled with an outside neurologist for my long term disability. It sucks because he's over an hour's drive away. Just with the way these migraines have been going, I will likely be dealing with a migraine that day. Driving for two hours with a migraine is B A D, bad. All I can hope for is a cloudy day as I honestly can't NOT go. I have to get through this exam in order to get my long term disability denial overturned.
If I needed more confidence in my own neurologist, I got it by looking up this neurologist and comparing him to mine. This neurologist has been practicing for thirty five years. He's published two papers, neither on migraines. He specializes in migraines and has very mixed reviews from several websites. My neurologist has been practicing for thirty five years. He's been published OVER THIRTY TIMES! And TWENTY of those papers were on migraines and migraine research. He's been involved in getting two drugs approved for migraine treatment including an entirely new class of drugs.
So, my long term disability doesn't believe my well published an researched neurologist is good enough and their sending me to a different neurologist that isn't as well published or researched. Nice. That makes perfect sense (/sarcasm).
Obviously I can't go that long without cash. I withdrew more from my 401k, enough to give me a $10,000 influx. That should easily cover me through April.
Family/Friends
I haven't heard from my friends A and/or E. I'm sure they're doing well and I'm sure we're all just in the same 'after the holidays funk'.
I mentioned that just after my last update Mom went into the hospital. She got out and is doing better. It was basically just tallied up to an exasperation of her COPD that turned into pneumonia. I hate to say it, but this is probably the way she's going to go out. She waited a long time with having difficulty breathing on her oxygen before she agreed to go to the hospital. Eventually, she'll wait too long and we'll be too late.
The one silver lining I can find is that while we were in the hospital I made a stink about her oxygen concentrator and her prescription for oxygen. Her doctor had done all the work and tests to get her on a prescription for 4 liters of oxygen while at rest and 5 liters while working. Basic in-home oxygen concentrators come in two varieties. Those that go up to 5 liters and those that go above it. Anytime you're on oxygen at home, you have your concentrator for every day use and oxygen tanks for emergencies (think of power outages, when the concentrator won't work). Well, when mom is in one of these emergencies, she needs more. Both nights that she was in crisis, we got her out of it by putting her on one of her tanks and cranking the oxygen initially up to 8 liters, then weening her back down to 6 liters. Well... that eats through those tanks FAST. We started the day of her crisis with her 'big' tank full, and two of her travel tanks (still big, but can fit on a little trolly and be dragged along) full. Two days of her in crisis mode with using that extra oxygen at night and she went through her big tank, one small tank, and about halfway into the other small tank. She had a few hours of oxygen left at that level.
Now, realistically she's not prescribed that much oxygen. If she can't get by with what she's prescribed, she should go to the hospital. That's no different than you or I. If we can't get by with what we're 'prescribed' (normal room air), then we should go to the hospital. But here's the thing... the home health company we deal with (that's a direct subsidiary of the main health company in town and the same company her doctor works through) has the prescription as 1 liter at rest and 2 liters with work. If that's all she needed, then the tanks she was given would be fine as they'd last almost a full month. But at 4/5 liters, they won't last more than a week. And pushing them to 6 or 8? Yeah, a couple days.
We didn't get it perfect, but the respiratory department at the hospital as well as the social worker got the home health company to agree to get her prescription fixed and get us a machine that could go over 5 liters. They didn't have the machine in stock but did deliver a second concentrator that can work with ours. Basically we can run one at 4 liters all the time and turn the other one on at one liter when mom works. If she needs more, we can then turn the second one up and together they can provide up to 10 liters. We honestly shouldn't be going above six as her tubing isn't set for that... but it could certainly handle it in an emergency setting.
I say it wasn't perfect because they now read the prescription as 2 liters at rest and 4 at work. You know what, close enough. We go the machine and got more emergency oxygen tanks. We'll deal with the next emergency when we have it.
Entertainment
Nothing much here. Some new tunes, but nothing to write home about. Watched some good movies, but again nothing to write home about. No gaming whatsoever.
New Tech
Nothing new here. Honestly, I should be pulling back my spending and getting less new tech. I hate it as I love playing with new things, but I don't make any money right now.
I guess the one thing I can mention is Adobe Acrobat. Like everybody out there, I have Acrobat Reader so that I can read PDFs. But with all this paperwork between social security, the state, long term disability and more, I often have to fill out these medical and financial questionnaires that go for 30 to 60 pages. I don't have good handwriting at my best, and writing out 30 pages of basic questions will just make it worse.
The first time this came up I used the free 7 day trial of Adobe Acrobat. This is the tool that lets you create and edit PDFs. I can add text anywhere in a PDF. That way I can simply scan my documents in as PDFs, add the text where I want, and print it back out for a signature. When the second form came recently, I'd already used the 7 day free trial. And I realized that I've often bumped my head against PDFs, wanting to edit them or add text to them.
So, fuck it. I bought it. But man, is this ever expensive.
I've had the Adobe Photography plan for years and years (I got it in 2014). It includes both Photoshop and Lightroom and costs $120 a year. Even just futzing around with Photoshop as I do, I believe is worth $10 a month. Adobe Acrobat? That alone costs $240 a year! My main justification is that if I had to handwrite these forms, I might well lose out because it would be illegible. In the long term disability, that would cost me $60,000 a year for two years. The state questionnaire could get me health insurance while I'm not at work which could save me over $700 a month.
$240 a year vs $68,400 a year? Yeah, easy decision.
Writing
I've been stuck. Since my last Gamer Gurl update I've only finished off Sadie's date and returning home from the date. Two chapters. I started writing the next chapter and... well, I got stuck.
You see, I want to finish off this 'part' of the story. It'll be the first part of maybe three parts total. I want to conclude with some questions, so I need Sadie to find somethings she shouldn't. I also want her to visit with her doctor (the one that did the fat grafting) who will note that Sadie has grown more than she suspected she should... the first hint that she's on bigger doses of hormones.
This shouldn't be hard. A chapter for Saturday, a chapter for Sunday... and that's it. Maybe, MAYBE, one final 'wrap up' chapter. But I'm just stuck. When I think of the story, I keep going forward and imagining whole sections of the next part. Sadie getting comfortable playing the part of Princess, even going so far as to being truly flirty with Marcel. Maybe having something physical happen with Marcel. Getting a good relationship with Louis. How does Louis prove he's sorry? Finding out that her hair removal is permanent. Finding out that she's getting FAR more feminine than she thought (breast growth, hips, skin softer, facial changes) all due to the extra hormones. How to deal with the suspected hormone changes without coping to even taking them and without stopping them all together? And finally, what would probably be the end of the second part... realizing that Sarah streams a sexual side of herself. The equivalent of an OnlyFans page.
But all of that is the second part. I need to finish the first part first. And I'd like to clean it up and post it over at Fiction mania as a multi part story with some variation of Gamer Gurl as the title (I'm thinking Gamer Gurl Origins).
One reason my creativity hasn't been at its best, beyond the migraines and this recent neck strain, is Locked in Lace. Lemme explain.
I saw a comment on the CHYOA Gamer Gurl story page. They said they were really enjoying the story and had just binged all chapters (34 at the time). They went on to say that they just loved the heck out of it and encouraged me to continue writing. The person who wrote this was melandren.
Initially I didn't think too much of who wrote it. I was just really pleased that they wrote something so nice. I was going to write a reply comment, thanking them for reading so much (I can't imagine reading all of that in one go!), when the name started to nag at the back of my head. It felt... familiar. I did a little digging and realized why it felt familiar. One of my favorite early authors was Melissa Daniels and Rene Carter. They'd written Drinking Games and it's follow ups Video Games. Those are still on fictionmania. They also wrote Playing the part, and if I was remembering correctly, they then started Locked in Lace.
A quick asside; I've had several people 'fangirl' over meeting me. This has happened when people first comment on my blog, or meet me at D+X, and most recently meet me at CHYOA. I tend to blush and act demure as I'm just me. I'm not someone who deserves such treatment. At the same time, I remember meeting Dee the first time at Rachel's Haven and I guess I can understand it. They're not seeing the normal person who likes to write and create and chat. They're seeing the person who created some of their favorite forced femme content (and often, porn!). I try to be encouraging and compliment them on their writing and encourage them to continue.
When I found Locked in Lace, it was when role playing at Rachel's Haven and wanting to do more. The people more experienced at role playing at Rachel's Haven made two suggestions. Locked in Lace and D+X. I tried LiL first as it was described as more established. Well, while there I found the semi interactive story The Office: Swimming in the Pool. That alone can account for my love of office settings when it comes to forced femme. Being a secretary became an obsession of mine and it too was written by Melissa Daniels and Renee Carter. But when I went to role play there... it just fell apart. I had a really bad experience and almost stopped role playing all together. Instead, I gave it one more try and went to D+X. D+X opened my eyes on how role playing should be and became my second femme home ever since (we're talking over ten years ago now!).
Anyway, I continued to follow LiL as it was where Melissa Daniels and Renee Carter continued to make stuff including their huge story Maidenhead. Back to what caught my attention, I looked back at some of my initial saved stories and found that when they published stories they pointed to a website. melandren.com (don't go there, it doesn't exist now). Could this person complimenting me on my story be THAT melandren?
So, instead of posting publicly thanking them, I responded privately. I still thanked them in the same way I intended, but ended up asking if they were THAT mel and ren. And yes. Yes it was Melissa Daniels that had responded to me. I won't mince words here... I fangirled all over Melissa Daniels. I tried to keep it to just a few paragraphs, but I was all "OH MY GOD!!!!" and "YAY!!!!"
It had been years since I visited LiL and I knew they'd gone through a major loss of service. So I stopped by and check them out. Not only was the site partially back up, they were doing a beta of their new role play. So... I tried it out.
Yeah, I won't describe every detail, but I got hooked. So that too kept me from writing Gamer Gurl as my creative energy was being spent on creating a new character at LiL. I feel a little guilty playing at LiL though. I stepped away from playing at D+X because I couldn't play consistently and now I was picking up laying again but doing it at a different place. Technically, I could always create a new character at D+X and play there. I could use the same internal argument... if I play intermittently as a 'girl' I wouldn't be slowing down other people, where if I play intermittently as a staff member, I'm slowing down girls and other people.
I should also add that LiL is still firmly in beta mode. I'm not talking personalities like beta boys vs Alpha Males, I mean 'not yet ready for prime time' beta. It's not done. Where D+X now and LiL in the past had clear paths of how to play, this is kind of left open and doesn't have a clear path let alone a lore to work from. That's coming out soon.
I haven't been there, at LiL, in a few days because the neck strain has kept me away. I'm considering making that parting of ways more permanent. I'll still check in occasionally but if I want to role play I might approach the board at D+X and see if they mind sating that part of my appetite. I don't think they would mind as they're understanding of what I'm going through... but it's always best to ask first. And you never know... it might get me back into writing as Caitlyn again there. I do miss playing as her.
Anywho, writing has been complicated and hasn't progressed much since I last updated.
One last little housekeeping item. I changed most of the link colors on this blog. I'd set this and my other blog up years ago when I'd always use an 'incognito' browsing system. With that system, it never showed me 'visited' links before as I had no history. Once I started using a Caitlyn specific browser with it's own bookmarks and history, I started getting that.... and realizing my visited links were dark as all hell and difficult to read. Especially when my vision is blurry from a migraine. So, I went in and as simply as possible, changed them to a set of colors that made more sense. If Caitlyn's Masks was pink, then Calvin's Musings might as well be blue.
It's nothing more deep than that.
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